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Ivory Towers and Gelfand's Principle
I read today a rant on pedadogical philosophy by Doron Zeilberger via Philip Wadler's web log.
The first one, due to my colleague and hero Israel Gelfand, I will call the Gelfand Principle, which asserts that whenever you state a new concept, definition, or theorem, (and better still, right before you do) give the SIMPLEST possible non-trivial example. For example, suppose you want to teach the commutative rule for addition, then 0+4=4+0 is a bad example, since it also illustrates another rule (that 0 is neutral). Also 1+1=1+1 is a bad example, since it illustrates the rule a=a. But 2+1=1+2 is an excellent example, since you can actually prove it: 2+1=(1+1)+1=1+1+1=1+(1+1)=1+2. It is a much better example than 987+1989=1989+987. While writing a reply on LTU, I thought about modifying this principle to programming language design: If an example has a solution that is nearly as good without a given language feature, then that example is not a good motivation for that feature. Perhaps not following this principle is partly what earned FP it's ivory tower reputation. Researchers love to generalize the heck out of any given feature, to add linguistic support for minor issues, etc. etc. It seems that as a result, PL researchers, particularly FP researchers, have a (deserved and undeserved) reputation for solving problems that aren't really there. I'm not suggesting that every exploration must be practically motivated. Indeed, it's fun and educational to explore what can be done for its own sake. Was laziness ever practically motivated? I'm not aware that it was, but it certainly lead to some very important breakthroughs, most significantly how to satisfactorily deal with impure effects in a pure language. However, when it comes to promoting a given language for wider use, features should be chosen to solve practical programming problem, preferably the problems that a niche finds unsatisfactory. (Or should find unsatisfactory... customers usually don't know what they need.) What practical problems in what niches are LTU readers aware of? By Leon P Smith at 2005-08-23 07:40 | LtU Forum | previous forum topic | next forum topic | other blogs | 17486 reads
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